Page 70 of Prior Claim
“Can I touch you, please? Only one hand. I need . . . to not be alone.”
Ellisandre hesitated, then released his left hand, cuff still on. It didn’t matter. Sevastyan reached for them, feeling their heart beating in their chest, the speed of it, the force. He was like Rei. Scared, alone, facing something that could not be observed with any sort of sanity. Rei had been strong, was strong. His madness gave him the strength to endure the world.
Ellisandre wasn’t the world. Ellisandre was a ghost come back to life, the terror of the Merchari and their ilk. Ellisandre was Sevastyan’s madness. And yet he still could not make his throat utter Rei’s name.
He touched Ellisandre’s face, his palm against their cheek. So long. Ten years. Listening to them die, realizing they had returned, the silence, the distance, every fraught path his soul had traveled. He could see the damage between them now, the fraying. If it wasn’t their bond, then it was him.
“There are walls in my mind that won’t come down, Elli. I built them up too high and now I can’t bring them down.”
Ellisandre covered his hand with their own and lay down against him. “All right.”
“What do you mean, all right? El, I have to bring them down. You have to break me. Everything I’ve done is for nothing if you can’t break me.”
“I can’t break what’s already broken.”
Sevastyan cried out, pulling on the chains. They had to break him. He had to tell them. This wasn’t a road he could walk anymore. Dirk was coming. The directors had their eyes on him. He was tired. Mistakes could be made. Would be made. Anton was a danger that might sell him out at any time. He’d promised Rei that he’d never be taken again. He couldn’t keep that promise if he was dead.
Ellisandre lay on him, heavy and close, hands on his face. “Hush, Bal.”
He gasped for air, chest rising and falling. Somehow he’d put his arm around Ellisandre, hugging them close. “It’s just words. I should be able to say just words. Cut them out of me.”
“It’s never just words. Words are spells, intentions, vehicles of power. Like names. Tell me how long we have.”
“I don’t know. It could be tomorrow, it could be six months from now. You have to cut this out of me.”
Ellisandre pressed their lips against his forehead. “I would if I could, Vast. But there isn’t a box inside your chest I can reach. This is your mind.”
“If I can’t even do this, then I’m irreparably broken.”
They took his free hand in both of theirs and pressed it against their chest, over the drum of their heart. “Broken doesn’t mean finished. We choose where we cut the story. Ours isn’t finished.”
“But the storm is coming.”
“Then we find the center and stand in it.”
Sevastyan curled inward against the back of the couch, as much as Ellisandre’s legs would let him, and sobbed deep, hacking howls that wouldn’t end. His lungs burned, his eyes stung, the muscles in his back and neck tensed and burned. His shoulders trembled. His stomach tightened in on itself as he screamed and choked. There were no words in his thoughts anymore. Only color and blurs. Images left him. Lights flashed and twisted behind his eyes as he screwed them shut against what was inside. His hands were cradled against his chest. They smelled like blood. Then the pressure on his ankles was gone. He curled into a ball on the couch, knees protecting his belly, arms protecting his head and chest. The world reduced itself to pain and the taste of iron and salt.
